Perth Museum & Art Gallery is currently showing the work of award-winning Scottish photographer Sophie Gerrard. Drawn to the Land is an ongoing and exploratory project, which takes an intimate look at the contemporary Scottish landscape through the eyes of women who are working, forming and shaping it.

Following a commission from Culture Perth & Kinross and inspired by photographic archive material held in the collection, Sophie brings the project to Perthshire, introducing farmers and shepherds in Auchterarder, Crieff, Amulree and Butterstone.

Farming some of the most inhospitable and isolated rural areas of Scotland, these women have an intense and remarkable relationship with the landscape in which they live and work. Gerrard’s photographs document the domestic environment as well as the physical, exploring the emotional impact of the land as much as the historical and geographical.

Gerrard says that while a growing number of women are entering farming today, the industry is still largely seen and discussed from a male point of view. Gerrard questions this stereotype of the farmer through her portrayal of the women who, in one way or another, find themselves ‘drawn to the land’.

Paul Adair, Collections Officer at Perth Museum and Art Gallery said ‘My first encounter with Sophie’s exhibited work was at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2016. The Ties That Bind was a Document Scotland group show and Sophie was exhibiting work from her Drawn to the Land series. I loved everything about her work. The quiet stillness of her studies- portraits of lives through carefully observed details. The colour palette of her film-based work seemed so right for the material she was recording.

I am delighted that Culture Perth & Kinross has been able to commission Sophie to work with additional Perthshire women in farming. As well as making a fantastic exhibition, acquiring some of Sophie’s work is a valuable addition to the photographic archive here at Perth Museum & Art Gallery. The archive already has a strong documentary theme and this cross over between art and social document inherent to photography makes for a potent combination.’

John Watt images from the museum archive

In addition to the Drawn to the Land exhibition, images by John Watt, from the museum archive, feature in the exhibition. Between 1959 and 1961 Perthshire photographer Watt documented life on Laighwood Farm near Butterstone, Perthshire.

The images were taken for a children’s book titled The Story of a Scottish Blackface Lamb, written from the perspective of a lamb and following its story from birth to motherhood.

The young girl featuring in the book is Elizabeth Bruges who today continues to work the same landscape with her brothers Timothy and Nigel.

In the exhibition Elizabeth as a girl is pictured helping to round up the ewes and lambs and painting them with ointment to protect them from pests and diseases. She is also at the Perth Agricultural Show shown helping to prepare a one year old blackface sheep for exhibition.

Sophie Gerrard’s contemporary portrayal of Laighwood makes a fascinating comparison with these earlier images.

Sophie Gerrard’s Drawn to the Land is on until 31 October 2019 at Perth Museum and Art Gallery. Admission is free.

Image © Sophie Gerrard. Reproduced with permission.